Abstract
This contribution will first describe some of the contexts for cross-field collaborations within the life sciences, and then will highlight relevant theoretical reflections, including the concept of “insertion,” “modulation,” and “trading zones.” Based on what can be learned from trading zones, we will use synthetic biology as a case-study to explore one of the inherent difficulties in evaluating the promises of our biotechnological futures: the role and faith of engineering concepts and metaphors within and beyond the walls of life sciences. We will then reflect on the importance of mutual learning between the two cultures of natural sciences and humanities to unpack what might be lost in translation through the use of engineering concepts and metaphors. We conclude with a range of institutional challenges to be tackled when it comes to promoting cohabitations within and beyond the walls of life sciences.
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- 1.
Several STS academics have suggested that the traditional “Republic of Science” is being replaced by a new “Mode 2” of knowledge production (Gibbons et al. 1994). Two properties linked to this new “Mode” – transdisciplinarity and an orientation toward problem-solving – are particularly relevant for our discussion.
- 2.
This concept of the “Agora” was introduced by Andy Stirling in the Session “Sustainability and Emerging Technologies” at the 2009 Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), October 29, 2009.
- 3.
The Two Cultures is the title of an important 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. It explores how the lack of interactions and knowledge-sharing between the “two cultures” of modern society – the sciences and the humanities – was a significant obstacle to solving the world’s problems. Several influential thinkers within the field of Science and Technology Studies have successfully begun to revisit C.P. Snow’s divide. Jasanoff (2004, 2005), for example, explains through the analytical framework of co-production how the objects and practices of scientific research are embedded in larger moral, legal, and social environments, and vice-versa.
- 4.
In (2007), J. Craig Venter – the renowned scientist who plaid a significant role in the race to deciphering the Human Genome – published his biography “A Life Decoded – My Genome: My Life.” In (2010), Rob Carlson, another active proponent of the development of the new biology, published a book on synthetic biology written for a large readership “Biology is Technology – The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life.”
- 5.
The field of bioethics has been quite successful at collaborating with teams of natural scientists and might be a source of learning for what mode of collaboration works and which does not work. But we also may want to be “reflexive” and examine the cases where ethicists might have been used as “token ethicists” and lacked room for questioning the research design, questions and trajectories.
- 6.
Sheila Jasanoff (2004) is noted for her work on co-production: the analytical framework of co-production directly pertains to governance issues by exploring how the objects and practices of scientific research are embedded in larger moral, legal, and social environments, and vice versa.
- 7.
See Chap. 3 by Rip and Robinson.
- 8.
Andrea Loettgers is currently a researcher at the California Institute of Technology and has a background in physics and philosophy of science; Eleonore Pauwels is a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington DC and has a background in linguistics and public policy.
- 9.
Source: Web of Science
- 10.
- 11.
In 1989, almost coincidentally with the release of the first U.S. patent on a complex organism, the Oncomouse, the Office of Technology Assessment (“OTA”) published the report entitled Patenting Life. In order to stress the analogy between mechanical and biological inventions, and thus the inevitable patentability of organisms, the OTA showed, side by side, the two drawings accompanying, respectively, the Mousetrap (patented in 1900) and the Oncomouse.
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Pauwels, E. (2013). Metaphors and Cohabitation Within and Beyond the Walls of Life Sciences. In: Doorn, N., Schuurbiers, D., van de Poel, I., Gorman, M. (eds) Early engagement and new technologies: Opening up the laboratory. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7844-3_11
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